151-year-old synagogue gets new lease on life.

Congregation Chasam Sopher, New York's second oldest synagogue, celebrated its ongoing complete restoration on September 8 at the temple building at 8 Clinton Street, with a reception marking the completion of the first phase of the restoration and the start of an 18-month writing of an entire Sefer Torah, Eugene Weiser, Chasam Sopher Congregation president said.

Rabbi Shmuel Wolfman, a "sofer" or Torah scribe, will write the Torah by hand inside Chasam Sopher. Weiser said the synagogue will open its doors to groups of students and to individuals who want to see how a Torah is written, and the Torah writing project will be used to raise funds for temple, built in 1853. Chasam Sopher translates to" Seal of the Scribe."

The Torah writing and the Chasm Sopher restoration are being sponsored by businessman/philanthropist Hank Sopher, who has been providing financial support to the synagogue since reading a 1976 newspaper article about the temple.

According to Rabbi Azriel Siff, spiritual leader of Congregation Chasam Sopher, there are only about 60 sofers in the United States and 300 worldwide.

"Jewish law dictates that every Torah, the holiest of all Jewish books, should be meticulously written out by hand rather than mechanically reproduced," Rabbi Siff said.

A Torah must be created according to strict rules, Rabbi Siff said. There are to be no mistakes in a Torah, which is carefully proofread after completion. And the Torah, considered a living document, must be made entirely of natural materials. That means using kosher ink, made from the crushed outer bark of a wasp's nest, a quill made from a turkey or goose feather, and cloth made from a calf killed for food.

Writing the 304,805 letters in the Torah out by hand is a painstakingly long process. The scribe immerses himself in a ritual Mikvah each morning before he commences his writing. There are 248 columns and about 80 parchment pages in most Torahs, and it can take a full day just to do one column, or about a third of a page of the Torah.

Rabbi Siff says that when the letters are formed by hand, the letters and their meaning are appreciated. He says that all Jewish souls connect in the Torah, so that every child of Israel that has read the Torah is represented in every letter.

Built in 1853, Chasam Sopher was established by a German Jewish congregation, but at the turn of the 20th century two Polish congregations merged to for Chasam Sopher. The German congregation moved uptown and became Congregation Rodeph Shalom.

Named for the highly respected German rabbi and Talmudic scholar. Moshe Shreiber, Chasam Sopher translates to "Seal of the Scribe." Schreiber means scribe and translates to "Sopher" in Hebrew.

In the mid 1970s many synagogues located in the Lower East Side fell in disrepair and were abandoned as the children of neighborhood Jews moved to the suburbs and joined new congregations.